I always scoff at those who claim that they enjoy college sports more than the professional sports because “it’s not about the money.”
If it’s not about the money, then why are schools kicking tradition, rivalries and geographical sensibility to the curb in favor of more lucrative television deals? If it’s not about the money, then why is the NCAA playing the Final Four and even some other tournament games in domed football stadiums that can hold perhaps four or five times as many people as the average college arena? Bigger isn’t always better —would you want to sit in the upper level of the Georgia Dome for the national championship game, not being able to tell who’s who, when you could be watching comfortably at home with a plate of nachos and a 12-pack of Pepsi?
According to the association’s official website, the NCAA — a nonprofit organization — is projected to make $797 million for the 2012-13 academic year. Approximately $700 million of that is based off of their television agreement with CBS and Turner Sports, who split coverage of the men’s basketball tournament. You can’t stop that gravy train.
Still think it isn’t about the money?
And the student-athletes who play in these games, the people every fan in the building pays to see, get their hands on absolutely none of that money. That is not to say the players aren’t taken care of come tournament time. The NCAA picks up travel, meal, and lodging expenses for all tournament participants, a duty performed by the schools themselves during regular-season play.
But it is still curious that the NCAA makes so much money off of its student-athletes while the student-athletes can’t get any of it. After Louisville’s Kevin Ware suffered his freak broken leg in the Cardinals Elite Eight game, Adidas, who supplies Louisville with their uniforms, released t-shirts with the slogan “Rise to the Occasion” printed on the front, with Ware’s jersey number “5” replacing the “S” in the first word.
It seems like a nice gesture on the surface, but no doubt Adidas made a pretty profit off of those shirts. Adidas has since stopped selling them, but the point remains. Making money off of a college kid who suffered a very unfortunate injury just doesn’t seem right to me. Then again, I’m not a corporation.
The other side of the argument is that athletes get an education for free solely based off of their athletic prowess, and that should be enough. College sure isn’t cheap. I’m sure every kid in America, not to mention their parents, wishes they could go to school for free.
But what about walk-ons athletes, or athletes on partial scholarships? What about teams that aren’t completely made up of scholarship athletes? What about athletes in conferences such as the Ivy League that don’t even offer athletic scholarships? To say that “scholarships are enough” just isn’t fair when you consider these groups.
Schools and conferences make ungodly amounts of money off advertising sales, ticket revenue and television contracts, among other things. When you bought that cool-looking black No. 5 Wolfpack basketball jersey at the bookstore, C.J. Leslie wasn’t getting a penny. But heaven forbid an athlete accepts a $50 check or a dinner from a booster. Moreover, college athletes are prohibited by the NCAA from endorsing third-party products like many professional athletes do. That’s why you never saw Lorenzo Brown in UPS commercials saying, “What can I do for you?” Get it?
Additional stipends and other sources of income for student-athletes have been a point of debate for some time now. If they were allowed, there is still the possibility for the money to be misused. Will it be misused any more than when the NCAA illegally obtained information during its investigation of the University of Miami? Who knows? But I suppose the NCAA just doesn’t trust its student-athletes. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the other way around as well.
